Central to Nowhere

by D. J. Blackmore

  Adam waited. He wondered if Ivy had forgotten he was there. She was busy, after all. He knew he’d struggle to bend and help wipe cupboards in his current limited capacity, but he felt lazy sitting on his backside, so he got to his feet and picked up a cloth.

  ‘I was wondering if you’d like to go out for dinner tonight? Just you and me.’

  ‘It’s a long drive into town. Two hours isn’t it? By the time I’ve finished this, it’ll be too late.’

  She barely looked at him, shot him a smile but it was grudging at best. Then she was into her task again, back towards him, clanging pots and pans. Adam felt the impact of her deliberate disregard. He felt a twinge in his chest.

  ‘Would you like me to help you with that?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s all below knee height. I think you’ll struggle.’

  Again, the tight smile that didn’t reach the eyes. What had he done? Oh yeah, he was struggling, but it had nothing to do with the boot that he’d been lugging around. He wanted to ask her what was wrong, but instead he cast around for familiar ground.

  ‘Michael and I counted forty-eight pumpkins in the garden the other day.’

  ‘All Queensland blues?’

  ‘There were some butternuts too.’

  Adam waited for her to continue the conversation, but he waited in vain. Obviously rearranging kitchen cupboards could be really absorbing. The dull chime of stainless cookware was hollow in the four walls. Adam was surrounded by emptiness. He made another effort to restore what had been between them earlier in the day. What he thought had been between them, anyway. He’d thought they’d felt like a family, that’s what.

  ‘All right then, since you’re not keen for me to take you to dinner tonight, I’ll cook up something for us.’

  At last Ivy looked up. ‘Can you cook?’

  ‘Ah … yes; maybe my specialty.’

  Ivy nodded, nonchalant. ‘Oh, all right then, whatever.’

  Whatever?

  He wasn’t sure if she was good with that, but she didn’t deny him the opportunity, so that was something. But she didn’t even seem to care.

  He pushed on. ‘There’s only one thing I ask.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Ivy wiped strands of hair from her forehead.

  ‘Well, I’m going to feel pretty lame wearing my best moleskins for dinner if you don’t dress up too. So, would you do me a favour?’

  ‘Uh-huh?’ She frowned.

  ‘Let’s both dress up like we’ve gone to town.’

  He saw her blush a little. Then again, it might just have been the heat of the kitchen.

  ‘Whatever you say, boss.’

  He wiped a slow hand over the table like he was mopping up spilt milk. She had already turned away. Why had she called him “Boss”? Was she making sure he understood that their partnership was business? That she didn’t want dinner with him? He was shaken, although he tried to assure himself he was wrong.

  He went to the family room to make a couple of calls. First one was Mum.

  ‘Just wondering how Michael’s getting on?’

  ‘Is that you, Adam? Michael and I have been having a lovely time. We’re going to order pizza for dinner, and on our way home from your place we bought a mud cake and a tub of ice cream to share.’

  ‘Sounds like a big night.’

  His mum chuckled. Adam made an effort to warm to the fun Michael and his mum were having, but something unsettling was happening with Ivy. Like they’d only just got on the merry-go-round together, and suddenly she wanted off.

  ‘Can I talk to him, please?’

  ‘He’s in the shower right now. We’re going to watch a movie later.’

  ‘You’ve waited a long time to spoil him a bit.’

  ‘Saved it up for three years.’

  ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ He heard the happiness in her voice and it picked him up a bit. ‘I’ll leave you to go check on him. I’ll call tomorrow. You two enjoy yourselves.’

  Adam put the phone down and sighed. If he were patient, Ivy would work out whatever was bothering her, or eventually she’d share it with him. Surely Ivy’s upset would pass, whatever it was? He had wondered about asking for his mum’s advice. But this was something a bloke dealt with alone.

  He dialled the shearing quarters. RJ answered the phone.

  ‘Afraid you’re going to have to bachelor it tonight, mate.’

  ‘What’s new?’

  ‘What I meant was that you’ll need to cook up baked beans for yourselves or whatever. Michael’s with my mum for the weekend and Ivy and I are sharing dinner for two, and tonight I’m playing at chef.’

  ‘What’s cooking?’

  ‘T-bone, chips and eggs.’

  ‘You’ve got it in the bag, mate. You’ll have her head over heels for sure.’

  ‘If only love were that simple. Reckon it’s a bit more complex than that, RJ.’

  ‘Too hard for me to figure out. I’ll stick to cows and horses.’

  ‘Speaking of work, how’s the new bloke, Seth, going?’

  ‘Now there’s a dark horse.’ RJ seemed reticent to say any more.

  ‘When he knocked on the door and asked if there was any work going, it was just what we needed. Are you saying he’s no good? Is he not up to scratch? I thought he seemed like he knew what he was doing.’

  ‘No, it’s not that; he knows his stuff. It’s something I can’t quite work out.’

  ‘Well, as long as he does what he’s told, I guess that’s all we’re asking.’

  ‘I suppose so. Hey, why don’t you take Ivy to the Twilight Meeting?’

  ‘The dirt bike race? Tomorrow night, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, a line up of some of the country’s best. Chicks dig motors and methanol.’

  Adam laughed. ‘How many chicks do you know?’

  ‘Well, I made that bit up, but it revs me up. Anyway, it’ll be fun. Good prize money they reckon, so it’ll be tough competition. Think Seth is one of the young guns that’s going to be on the track. And apparently Jack is good for more than ferrying feeble one-day-old calves from paddock to pen on a dirt bike.’

  Normally, it would have lifted a smile, but the antics of Jack just then failed to raise the corners of his mouth.

  Adam made his way into the dining room. He was lucky that RJ wasn’t just a worker on Capricorn station, but a mate. RJ understood hooves and husbandry as well as any person Adam had known. But if RJ was good with livestock, he was every bit as capable with cars, quads and bikes.

  Being a farrier wasn’t the only talent he had under his belt. He could spin spanners to make a living at engines instead if he wanted to. But RJ reckoned he preferred the quietness of the country, to the demands of automotive customers with shot injectors and sharp tempers. Doubtless the handy hired help would be revving engines at the bike track tomorrow night under lights.

  In the meantime, there was dinner with Ivy. Adam spread and set the table with the silverware and opened the windows wide. A soft breeze stirred the gauzy curtains. Hmm, no candle, so they wouldn’t be able to dine by soft light. Electricity would have to do.

  Adam wasn’t interested in changing the world. He didn’t plan to help humanity by saving lives or finding a cure. Gee, he hadn’t even finished his secondary education, never mind gained a university degree. He didn’t profess to know much at all, except when it came to the land that he managed, and the cattle he raised. He had little experience in women, and what he did have had been learned at a cost. But like any man, he understood love.

  He knew that when he had woken up in the morning, Ivy had given him that look. That when he had touched her hand in the hallway on his way outside to work, he felt as though she had handed him her heart with her smile. That when she had wiped Michael’s face with a cloth, she had felt like family. That there was love in her touc
h. But that afternoon she had been like a stranger he didn’t know at all.

  Love didn’t come and go like a breath of wind. It wasn’t there one moment, only to disappear the next. He knew that love between a man and a woman could last a lifetime. Real, enduring love, that was. Everyone wanted it, but not everyone was blessed, to use a word he’d heard Ivy say.

  His union with Rachael had been a flirtation that had got physical and had produced Michael. Adam had made some wrong choices, but in marrying her, he had tried to do his best. His best hadn’t been enough. He had failed, and his failure nagged at him.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The sun was still relentless in the sky. The mercury hardly moved in the barometer from one day to the next, so summer was far from over, but time was running out. Ivy needed to make a decision, and she was torn. She was torn between what she wanted to do and what she thought she should do. Making the right choice may not make it right for her, but maybe it would be the best one for Adam … for Michael, too.

  Ivy thought of all the times she had acted rashly, moments she had thought only of herself. Times she had given up precious things just to try and earn the love and commitment she so desperately needed from a man. The second she had realised that she had failed to consider the consequences of reckless actions, only to be overjoyed to know that a beautiful new life grew inside her womb. She had been abandoned, yet again, and the secret of the love she thought they shared had died, too.

  Ivy couldn’t just dismiss Grace’s proposal. Was she as selfish as Grace suggested? There were more people to think about than herself. She had to get it right, this time around.

  Time you grew up, Ivy.

  Grace didn’t dislike Ivy, this much she did know. Grace had been happy that Ivy had visited them, and had given her the recipe to bake biscuits for Adam. But that had been just before Rachael turned up with Michael. It was Rachael’s arrival that had changed everything. And when all was said and done, the only brutality had been Grace’s honesty.

  She would continue to do her work, milking, cooking, cleaning the house for Adam. Soon enough, autumn leaves in the city parks would fall. If she decided to return home, as planned, she’d hurt Adam and Michael, she knew that, too.

  But, maybe finding Adam and Michael and sharing their lives for just one summer was all that she was meant to have. Hoping that something was forever when it was only there for a season, didn’t make it right. Her heart cramped as she thought about how she’d been learning that her whole life. First Daddy. Then one after another failed relationship. Then the loss and grief that still lingered in her soul. The thing that she craved wasn’t necessarily what she needed. After all, there were the needs of a little boy, whose heart needed to be filled with all the experiences a mum and dad could give him.

  Ivy heard Adam make his way clumsily up the staircase. With each uneven footfall, another tear fell. Each clomp of his boot endeared him a little more to her. But distancing herself was the only right thing to do. Now she must care for his needs as her employer, alone. After all, falling in love with the boss hadn’t been part of the job description. There was a lariat around her heart so tight, she wondered if she’d ever loosen it. Right then she didn’t want to.

  She stumbled outside into the hot wind and heat. It fanned her wet cheeks, and for all the pain of heartache, the sensation let her know she was alive. Corn stalks shook in the strength of the westerly wind. It was there that Ivy fell to her knees, rocking in misery as she sobbed. Between the rows she hid from the truth that she could no longer run from.

  She was in love with Adam O’Rourke.

  But this was not her family. This was not about her. She only asked that she would have the strength to bear leaving when the time came. She had done it before. She could do it again.

  Ivy looked up at a sound and hurriedly swiped at her tears. Her eyes and nose were streaming. She headed upstairs and slipped into the bathroom unseen, took in the misery that looked back at her from the mirror, then looked away and turned on the cold water tap. There would be no hiding the truth if Adam saw her right now. He would want to know what the problem was, and she could do nothing but tell him the truth. Truth of sorts, at any rate.

  Ivy made her way downstairs. She glanced Adam’s way. He was bent over, industrious, concentrating on his task at the chopping board. Her ears met with the sharp sizzle of oil in a pan, the smell of potatoes sweating on the stovetop.

  Ivy went to the dining room. And as she stepped in she took in his handiwork. The table was covered by a white cloth. Silverware made her smile as she picked up a fork and saw her face in its reflection. She guessed he’d been busy with a polishing cloth and saw that the only thing he had overlooked were tapers, but Ivy knew where to source those. She had seen them in the back of the napkin drawer, and eased out the two crystal holders, to place one at either end.

  She also knew where the lone gardenia grew. Probably the only thing that stopped it from being torn out was that it was safe in the kitchen garden. Her smile was full of regret as she thought of Dusty, Adam’s beloved stock horse. She let herself out through the screen door and around the back to the glossy green shrub.

  Adam looked out at her from where he worked in the kitchen. His smile was tentative. Ivy turned away then went inside to fill a vase. She would remember the smell of gardenias and long sunsets in the Tropic of Capricorn long after the fragrance of that summer had faded from her senses.

  How could she ever forget Adam? Owner of a big herd of long-eared cows, and enough land that her mind’s eye would be able to travel over, long after she had gone. Just like she would recall the rugged plains of his face, and eyes she liked to call Southern Hemisphere blue. A colour that was like a piece of paradise, yet it gave her no peace at all.

  While Adam was cooking dinner, Ivy straightened the items on the bookshelves. There were family photographs, vintage kids’ games, and a handful of ribbons from the Sydney Royal Easter Show. There was an album that read ‘Our Wedding’. Ivy stepped back even as her hands reached out. She couldn’t resist. She pored over the photos against her own better judgement, against any grain of commonsense she thought she had possessed. It was punishing and it hurt. It hurt a lot.

  Ivy spun towards the door. Adam stood just inside.

  His gazed skimmed the table and he smiled. But then he walked in and saw the photos she was looking through. His smile faltered.

  ‘Wedding album? What are you looking at that for?’

  A glance at his face told her he was embarrassed.

  But then, so was she. Ivy’s face burned as though she was guilty. She opened her mouth to speak. ‘I … I was rearranging the cupboards. I didn’t mean to intrude. It’s your private life. I realise that. I apologise for being nosy. I ought to have asked first.’

  ‘You’re not intruding.’ Adam frowned. ‘You’ve cleaned every cobweb and carpet beetle from this old house. There isn’t a corner that you haven’t put your touch to, and I like it. I don’t care if you look at that old wedding album. I don’t know why it’s still there. If I was a better housekeeper I’d have turfed it to the tip after the divorce ages ago.’

  But you didn’t, did you?

  He took it from her and dumped it back inside the cupboard, then shut and locked the door. Was he ashamed for her to see it? Had she opened the vault on memories he wanted to hide?

  He confirmed it. ‘Last thing I want to see is photos of Rachael. I don’t want to go over the past.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s dead and buried.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Listen, I don’t want to talk about this—or her. I came to tell you that it’s nearly time for tea.’

  ‘Do you need any help plating up?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  Ivy wondered why Adam was scolding her if she had done nothing wrong. Once again, she felt like an interloper, a visi
tor at best. She headed upstairs to dress for what she supposed that was their first proper date. Ivy would have felt more comfortable slipping into pyjamas and hiding under the covers right now, but she pulled resolve from deep inside and made the effort to dress up. Just in case this was her last chance.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Just look at you.

  Adam stood there like a bull that had copped a knock square on the forehead. He was stunned, knocked sideways, dopey with desire as she walked down the stairs in that dress.

  He cleared his throat and licked dry lips. She’d lit a fire inside him and now the skirt that skimmed her knees fanned the flame.

  Ivy’s cheeks were flushed and her mouth looked all wet. Chap Stick or whatever, he supposed—who ever thought it could look so damn good? Edible, yeah, that was the word.

  ‘Are you hungry? I am.’ That was all that fell out of his mouth.

  Idiot.

  He was the one to blush. It was hot in here all of a sudden. He began to sweat and rolled his sleeves a little higher. Looked away from her lips that were like a trough of cool water, opened the window behind him as wide as he could.

  But Ivy wasn’t in the mood for talking. She didn’t appear too happy to be with him at all. Adam felt like there was a chip lodged in his throat, but the lump that he just couldn’t swallow was raw emotion. He had wanted to spend the hours with Ivy, wanted to have her properly to himself. Last thing he wanted was Rachael sitting in between them and that’s just how it felt now. And to punctuate the fact, he picked up his plate, knife and fork and plonked it right down beside her, and then he carried around his chair. He sat it as close as he was able without banging her elbow with his own.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I put my chair in the wrong place,’ he mumbled. Adam took a mouthful of steak and glanced at her. Ivy put her head down, but all she did was hedge around the meal with her knife and fork.

  Perhaps he should have asked her if she was okay with him cooking steak for dinner. RJ had said that he’d ‘got it in the bag’ but it seemed that RJ didn’t know anything about the subject of romantic dinners. Maybe she preferred something more classy? Adam didn’t know the first thing about soufflés or coulis, but he wasn’t a bad hand at chips, steak and eggs. So he’d thought, anyway.